The present disclosure relates generally to the field of semiconductor manufacturing and, more particularly, to a system and method for semiconductor mask process management.
The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced rapid growth. Technological advances in IC materials and design have produced generations of ICs where each generation has smaller and more complex circuits than the previous generation. However, these advances have increased the complexity of processing and manufacturing ICs and, for these advances to be realized, similar developments in IC processing and manufacturing have been needed. For example, an IC is formed by creating one or more devices (e.g., circuit components) on a substrate using a fabrication process. As the geometry of such devices is reduced to the submicron or deep submicron level, the IC's active device density (i.e., the number of devices per IC area) and functional density (i.e., the number of interconnected devices per IC area) has become limited by the fabrication process.
Furthermore, as the IC industry has matured, the various operations needed to produce an IC may be performed at different locations by a single company or by different companies that specialize in a particular area. This further increases the complexity of producing ICs, as companies and their customers may be separated not only geographically, but also by time zones, making effective communication more difficult. For example, a first company (e.g., an IC design house) may design a new IC, a second company (e.g., an IC foundry) may provide the processing facilities used to fabricate the design, and a third company may assemble and test the fabricated IC. A fourth company may handle the overall manufacturing of the IC, including coordination of the design, processing, assembly, and testing operations.
The complexity of process steps and time-consuming process of manufacturing advanced semiconductor devices mandates efficient processing systems and methods, specifically the control of lithographic mask design, facilitation, and organizational processes for the fabrication and management of masks. Furthermore, the cost of fabrication of lithographic masks or reticles increases as device design rules scale down and the management of such masks becomes an ever increasing concern. The valuable masks and/or reticles can be shared between fabrication facilities, however the management of reticles and/or masks can provide problems in organization such as communication problems between fabs, wherein different definitions or manufacturing executing systems (MES) may be employed. Other lithographic technologies are also being implemented such as maskless lithography. A maskless lithographic system may utilize an enormous amount of data and therefore the integrity of such mask data is important.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for providing an effective mask process management system in a semiconductor manufacturing environment.